News on Letchworth Garden City

Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation is calling on young Letchworth creatives to help capture the spirit of living in the world’s first garden city.

The Foundation, which works to maintain and enhance Letchworth Garden City, has launched the first phase of a wide consultation asking people about day-to-day life in Letchworth. In addition to this, the Foundation has also announced the new Letchworth Young Designer Competition. This asks local young people aged 15 to 18 to design, create or curate an image which captures the spirit of a modern garden city for the consultation’s branding. Entries should reflect what embodies the community and its future, and can be in any format – such as a drawing, photograph or mood board. Designs can be supplemented with answers to some or all of these questions:

The winner will get £200 towards their school, college or local group, and get to showcase their work to potentially thousands of residents as part of the Foundation’s engagement programme.

Entries should be emailed to Emma Benson ( emmabenson@mpc.email ) and Richard Parry (richardparry@mpc.email ) by 10pm on Sunday 25th November 2018.

David Ames, Executive Director for Stewardship & Development at Letchworth Garden City Foundation said: “We want improvements in Letchworth to be in line with garden city principles, including involving local people as much as possible. This consultation belongs to local people, and it’s essential that this conversation involves young people as much as possible. The winner of the Letchworth Young Designer Competition doesn’t need to be an expert, we encourage anyone with a vision and passion for design to take part.”

Everyone is invited to engage with the conversation via the dedicated consultation website: letchworthgardencity.commonplace.is

Getting help to enter the competition: Why not speak to people about what they like most about Letchworth? Or try looking at what you would see if you were visiting for the first time. There’s lots of free information about Letchworth at the International Garden Cities Exhibition and at the Garden City Collection Study Centre. You could use these to see how other people have looked at how to plan the creation and improvement of the town. Much of the Garden City Collection can be viewed at www.gardencitycollection.com and you could see examples of Royal Institute of British Architect’s previous wider design competition for general inspiration. Anyone is welcome to get in touch with us via consultation@letchworth.com for more tips.